H.M.S. Unseen

“Yes, that’s rather what I want to know, too. We, Corporal, had better find out.”

“Well, sir. We’ve really got two choices. We can either take the jeep and get up there, wiv lights, and flush ’im out, or rescue ’im, as the case may be. Or, we leave ’im up there all night to freeze ’is bollocks off.”

“I don’t think we really ought to do the latter. We are in charge of the place. There is quite a lot of sensitive equipment here, and I am inclined to think we should just go and sort it out?”

“I think that is the correct military assessment for an officer of your class, sir. And I’m ’ere to do as you tell me. ’Owever, I must say, meself, I’d probably take the bollock-freezing option, wouldn’t I?”

“Okay, Corporal. Coats on. We don’t need weapons. Bring two flashlights, and let’s get out there. Warm the engine over, will you? I’ll shove a petrol can in the back…You know the gauge has never worked on this bloody thing.”

“Right, sir.” Corporal Lawson headed for the door, jangling the keys to the jeep. He opened it and kicked over the engine, which started with a roar. The lieutenant was right behind him, with a gas can from the store.

The breath of both men was white on the freezing night air, and as the corporal walked, he glanced again up to the highest escarpment of Oiseval. And there it was again. Three short flashes. But this time it was followed by three longer ones, and then, immediately, by three more short ones. “Sir, I think we’re seeing an SOS up there,” said Tommy Lawson. “Which means it’s got to be an aircraft of some kind. There’s no other way anyone could be up there…Might be a Navy chopper or something. But we didn’t hear nothing, did we?”

“No, we didn’t,” replied the lieutenant. “Nothing at all.” And there was a worried frown on his face as Corporal Lawson drove the jeep over the rough terrain beyond the camp, heading northeast across the rising ground, up toward the light.

The total distance up to the summit of Oiseval was less than half a mile, but it was rock-strewn, and Lawson had to pick his way through the boulders. They were making about 5 mph and the Land Rover lurched and roared its way up the steep hill to the top. Every few minutes they saw the flash of the light above, and as they drew closer they had to make a wide detour around a sheer rock face that even their vehicle could not handle.

Finally, they were within sight of the highest point and saw the flashlight again, dead straight ahead, to the east, on the brink of the cliff. There was no sign of wreckage, and the headlights of the Land Rover were beginning to shine out over the ocean far below.

“What I don’t want to do, is to drive this fucking thing over the edge, right sir?”

“Right, Corporal. Actually, I think we should stop here and wait for the light. Keep the engine running and the main beam up so that whoever it is can see us. He can’t be far away, but it’s so damned dark.”

“Yessir. And it’s a bloody long way down if anyone misjudges it.”

They waited for five minutes. And there was nothing. “Perhaps ’e’s fainted, sir…or died.”

Chris Larkman was about to agree, when the light flashed again, directly opposite the officer’s left shoulder. Not more than 30 yards away. There was no sound. Corporal Lawson heaved on the hand brake, took his flashlight, and opened the door. “ ’Old it, sir. I’ll come round.”

The corporal stood outside for a few moments, fastening his big winter jacket and pulling on his gloves. Then he slammed the door on the driver’s side and walked to the back of the Land Rover, and as he did so, Ben Adnam came out of the night like a demon and slammed the paperweight into the area behind Lawson’s right ear. The big East Ender crumpled to the ground, and Chris Larkman never heard a thing above the noise of the engine. And through the steamy Perspex of the rear window, he never saw the Iraqi commander drag the corporal’s body back around to the driver’s side.

Lieutenant Larkman waited. Then he called out, “Corporal Lawson? Everything okay?” But no reply came back, and Chris tightened his belt and pulled down his hat. Then he opened the door and stepped out onto the frozen peak of Oiseval, instinctively moving to the back of the jeep, in the direction he had seen the corporal walk.

Commander Adnam was waiting. The young lieutenant thought he saw a shadow and made to turn, but he was too late. The former master of HMS Unseen banged the paperweight hard into the area behind the officer’s right ear, and he, too, crumpled to the ground.

It took Ben Adnam a full ten minutes to haul both unconscious men back into the front seats of the Land Rover. But he managed in the end, let go the hand brake, slammed the driver’s door shut, and heaved against the open window.

The Land Rover began to roll forward, its headlights still on. It gathered speed slowly, and was traveling at only around 10 mph when it plunged over the precipice, its engine still running, all the way down, until it crashed into deep water 500 feet below. Ben heard it hit the ocean, and doubted whether anyone would ever find it. Finally alone on St. Kilda, he was extremely busy. He checked his watch. Lieutenant Larkman and Corporal Lawson had died at 1741. The commander turned back toward the military camp far below, and, snug in his cold-weather gear, using the big flashlight he had borrowed from Tommy Lawson, made his way down to the British Army’s fuel store.

It took him fifteen minutes, and he made a visit to the living quarters before he went to work. He noticed a label on a suitcase. “Lawson T. 23082826. Corporal. Royal Army Service Corps.”

Ben stood by the electric fire for a few minutes and decided to make himself a cup of tea in the small kitchen. He sat down in the one comfortable chair and sipped the hot, sweet brew, thinking about the journey he must now make—140 miles at 15 knots. Over nine hours running time if he made no mistakes. The sea remained calm enough. Perhaps the low front, which he had feared, had just drifted by on its way to Iceland and the North Cape. He’d need a lot of gasoline. But right now he had a lot of gasoline.

He returned to the kitchen and washed and dried his cup, carefully placing it back on the shelf where he had found it. There were two dirty cups in the sink, and the arch terrorist considered a third might be a clue to the forthcoming Army investigators. Also, he wanted no fingerprints left behind.

Leaving the lights and heater switched on, he went outside, still using Lawson’s flashlight to save his own. The fuel store was open and inside there was a 1,000-gallon tank of diesel on which the gauge showed half-full. This was not good news since it would not power his outboard. But he found a stack of four-anda-half-gallon gasoline cans in a lean-to shed at the back — the fuel for the Land Rover, stored in the fresh air, for safety.

Ben left immediately, heading along the shore toward his boat. Once there he cleared the stones away, reinflated the buoyancy bays, and hauled the boat the short distance to the water, where he manhandled it into the light surf breaking in from the Atlantic. He paddled out into deeper water and let the engine down. He primed it, using the rubber bulb on the fuel line, and hit the starter. Captain Gregor’s Zodiac fired the first time, and Ben drove it easily across the bay to the flat landing place right below the church.

He raised the engine and beached the Zodiac. Then he jumped out and spun the boat around, bow to sea, with the stern and raised engine hard aground. He guessed the boat would float and drift on the incoming tide inside twenty minutes, so he had to move fast. He jogged back to the store, returning more slowly with two heavy fuel cans in under fifteen minutes. There was an extended tank under the seat of the Zodiac, and it took the whole nine gallons.

Two journeys later he had another three cans on board, giving him 13 gallons more, which would, he knew, be plenty to carry him over the water to the little Scottish fishing port of Mallaig. He still had six big sandwiches left and three bottles of water, but he had not taken extra food from the soldiers’ kitchen, great though the temptation had been. Commander Adnam regarded himself as a professional military man, not a sneak thief, and his principles did not permit him to take as much as a piece of cheese, unless it was essential to his survival. He was curiously obsessive about the whole concept of acting professionally. Indeed he had his own private definition. “Professionalism has nothing to do with money. It involves the total elimination of mistakes.”

And thus far, he considered he had made none. The Iranians plainly believed he was dead, an error of judgment that had also been made briefly by Iraq, and for much longer by Israel and the United States.

The Army landing craft would arrive the next morning at the earliest, and the officers would be faced with a complete mystery involving the disappearance of a lieutenant and a corporal, plus one Land Rover, green in color, property of the Royal Army Service Corps. Unless they were prepared to spend years combing every yard of the treacherous deep waters beneath St. Kilda’s cliffs, they would never know what had become of the missing men. Nor would they ever know that Commander Adnam had ever visited the island. There was, he knew, no trail. There had been no fighting, no gunshots, no blood, nothing broken. No one had seen him. At least no one who was still alive. And he was not injured. Better yet, he was mobile.

He paddled the Zodiac out into deeper water before lowering the engine and running swiftly to the east,